The Importance of Wearing a Holter Monitor if You Have Heart Issues

Your heart is a crucial aspect of your health. It pumps oxygenated blood throughout your body to keep everything running as it should.

However, your heart is a muscle and can sustain an injury, which causes various symptoms, including chest pain or tightness. If you're experiencing heart problems, a doctor may have you wear a Holter monitor to evaluate your heart health.

At the Heart Clinic of Hammond, Dr. Ghiath Mikdadi and Dr. Farid Zayed offer Holter monitoring and other diagnostic tools to evaluate patients with heart problems.

Dr. Mikdadi and Dr. Zayed are both board-certified cardiologists who take the time to listen to your symptoms, evaluate your health, and provide you with cutting-edge diagnostic tools and treatments.

The facts on a Holter monitor

A Holter monitor is a device to evaluate your heart rhythm and health. It's a small device, about the size of a card deck, that constantly records your heart's rhythm over a day or two.

If you need a Holter monitor, we make an appointment to attach it and explain how it works. You should shower before the appointment because you shouldn't remove the monitor, and it can't get wet.

We then apply electrodes to your chest, which pick up the heart's rhythm while you're wearing the device. The wires attach the electrodes to the Holter monitor. We explain how to use it, and you can go about your day.

You wear the Holter monitor for 24 to 48 hours, during which we can see every heartbeat and rhythm. Once the time is up, you return to the office, and we evaluate the readings and discuss the findings.

Who needs a Holter monitor?

A Holter monitor is sometimes necessary if other testing hasn't revealed the cause of your symptoms. For example, you might require a Holter monitor if an electrocardiogram (EKG) was inconclusive or didn't provide enough information on your heart.

An EKG only captures a small picture of your heart health. It may not pick up on issues that happen during activities or while you're asleep. A Holter monitor provides significant insight into symptoms such as:

• Unexplained fainting
• Dizziness
• Chest pain
• Extremely fast heartbeat
• Pounding in your chest
• Shortness of breath
• Weakness and fatigue

A Holter monitor is an essential tool to find the reasons behind an acute arrhythmia, fainting, or palpitations in your chest.

If you already have known heart problems, we can use the Holter monitor to evaluate several aspects of your health. The monitor can tell us how your heart medications are working and if your heart is getting enough oxygen.

When you have a pacemaker, the Holter monitor provides the necessary information about how the pacemaker works and your heart's overall health.

Wearing a Holter monitor is important

A Holter monitor is an invaluable tool that we use when new heart issues arise or when we need to evaluate how your heart works after starting a new medication or a procedure.

Heart issues don't work on a schedule; they pop up anytime, even while you're asleep. A Holter monitor lets us see your heart beating in real time to recognize a problem immediately.

It's crucial to wear the Holter monitor as prescribed to evaluate your heart and find any problems we need to address.

The Holter monitor gives information that allows us to determine the next treatment step. For example, if you've recently started a heart medicine, we can evaluate if it's working or not.

If the medication doesn’t provide the desired results, we can change the dose or switch you to a different one altogether.

The monitor also provides critical information about heart arrhythmias affecting your health. We can learn more about your heart to give you the best treatment options for your needs.

To schedule an appointment for a Holter monitor, call us today at 985-974-9278 or request an online consultation at our Hammond or Amite, Louisiana, office.